It will be better this time; it will be better this time.

The air in my apartment is stale, and I can hear the incessant, insectile buzz of my decrepit fluorescent light. My blood is rushing in hot now under my skin. I must ignore their rallies outside, their deafening ululations echoing. They are spectacular and grisly, hankering for blood. They have erected a wooden likeness of me with my alien-like features, and they are ready to destroy it. I am deprived of touch, and I have not left my room in two days. My eyes burn, bloodshot and tired. I do not know if I have apologized to anyone in the crowd, nor do I know if they are actually there. I do not know if the fires are real. Perhaps it is kicking in.

There are six candles lined up, and he had guaranteed they would be sufficient for the duration of the ceremony. I have been begging since the candles were lit, although I cannot establish whether I am asking to be forgiven, to be made again, or to be relieved of the responsibility of existing in my present condition. I suspect these are entirely different requests, but I have begun addressing them in the same, vague manner. Please let this work. He also provided me with the peculiar arylcyclohexylamine synthesized by a dying man in Prague who preached the impermanence of personal identity and the indestructibility of the soul. The man had apparently hoped to isolate consciousness from the great accumulation of memories and bodily sensations through which it ordinarily recognized itself, though his experiments had the rather inconvenient consequence of resurrecting the faces of people from his subjects’ past. He insisted these apparitions were merely the final disturbances of a disintegrating identity. There is also the laughing gas, of course, which I have not yet touched. He said it might make it easier to confront my past and decide what I was willing to leave behind, and it would make it easier to encounter It.

The instructions are handwritten on five pieces of yellow paper, promising a second creation, a complete restoration of the organism to a condition preceding its moral deterioration, “palingenesis.” The author claims to have witnessed its successful completion on five occasions – five separate rebirths. He speaks of the flesh becoming friable, separating from the body in great, translucent sheets, until the organism, having undergone an extraordinary metamorphosis, begins to regenerate. New skin, new organs, a new brain – an entirely new identity. I am desperate for another life; I want to be absolved of this life, as I can no longer carry the burden of guilt and responsibility.

I do not fill the cup all the way. I do not know how desperate I am; hypothetically, I should fill the goblet all the way, but blood makes me nauseous, and the blade hurts. Perhaps I am not the right person to perform this ritual. I was told, “Desperation, it will only work if you’re desperate. It will only work if you give it everything.” I tried to stab myself in the stomach, and I was brave enough to press hard but not brave enough to accelerate. If I really wanted to stab myself, I would have moved hard and fast. I feel like I am not strong enough. I really hope this works, but I am not hoping enough.

Outside, the protestors have acquired a jukebox from a diner on the corner. Someone has connected it to an extension cord running through the ground-floor window, and it is playing a mellifluous song I recognize from my childhood. Their dances to this are convulsive, liturgical. I see my dead neighbor in the crowd sitting comfortably on a folding chair eating something out of a paper bag. I was warned of seeing people who could no longer be encountered under ordinary circumstances. He had called this a collapse of certain perceptual boundaries, a consequence of the brain becoming uncertain about which of its representations correspond to objects in the external world. I really hope this works. I close the curtains.

I put the mask on, and by now, my body has become a vile enclosure to inhabit, sweat dripping down my forehead. Perhaps forgiveness is logarithmic. Lying on my back, I hope everyone forgives me. Please forgive me. Please forgive me. I know that I am a liar, and some part of me hopes this knowledge will follow me to my grave, although I have also spent the entire night begging to be relieved of it. I keep promising myself that I will repair everything quickly, while there are still people willing to listen, but my fear is wasting time. I am running out of time. I am capitulating. I am obliged to exhale, although the instructions make no provision for it. Inhale.

The walls are shrinking, expanding, shrinking, and the carpet is producing geometric proliferations, hexagons within hexagons, each containing another room identical to mine. Inhale.

Somewhere in the apartment, an electrical appliance is humming, a choir composed entirely of insects. Inhale.

The instructions say that It will become visible during this stage, “It,” being understood provisionally as a designation for whichever primordial intelligence or generative principle is responsible for the existence of everything. There is no mention of heaven, judgment, sins, or eternal punishment. I try to imagine the original creator. Not a man, nor an enormous face suspended among clouds, but the antecedent of every conceivable object, a luminous and undifferentiated source from which all emerged. I wonder whether the creation was deliberate. Inhale.

The room brightens. I open my eyes, although I cannot remember closing them.

The fourth instruction concerns the eradication of the former self, and the author is emphatic about the necessity of a complete severance, explaining that partial regeneration produces a grotesque hybrid of old and new characteristics, comparable to an animal which has begun metamorphosis but cannot complete it.

I begin writing down the obvious things I wish to leave behind, the time-consuming vices, the lies, the small habits of manipulation. The less readily admitted deficiencies take longer to enumerate: the satisfaction I occasionally derive from desire, the lies I tell myself to believe I am innocent. The lack of willingness. I should have been braver. To do this, I have to be brave.

Outside, the rally has fallen silent, and I peek through my curtains and gaze into the mixed expressions in the crowd. Some people will be pleased by my departure, others uncertain. I do not know if anyone will miss me. I stare into the eyes of an ex-lover, the eyes of my younger cousin whom I had betrayed, the eyes of my mother. There was a time when people seemed to have considerably less to say about the injuries they inflicted upon one another, but now everyone speaks so fluently of trauma, manipulation, and the various indignities of human attachment. Everyone is evolving into extremely educated people; there is no room for error here. Beyond the guilt I feel as my eyes wander into this crowd, I feel love, sorrow, and I begin to contemplate the existence of a soul. If there exists something in me that persists independently of my memories, my habits, and the accumulated consequences of my behavior, would it retain any capacity to love them? I have been instructed to surrender my former self, but I cannot establish whether that also requires completely surrendering everyone who has ever constituted a part of it. How do I surrender this? I close the curtains.

I take another sheet of paper and begin a second list; on this one, I write their names. Everyone I can remember. I begin with those I know I have hurt, then add the names of people whose suffering I, in retrospect, may have been too preoccupied to recognize.

Everything I can think of. Everything I can think of. The jukebox stops outside. I will miss that song if I am capable of longing, capable of missing, after this.

The candles are now extinguished, but the apartment is glowing with the most blazing light I have ever seen. At first, I naturally attribute this to the approaching morning, though the windows remain covered and the light’s origin is impossible to determine. My hands become illuminated by some internal source, their veins forming a delicate blue arborization from beneath the skin.

There is a sensation of extraordinary proximity, as though something immense has entered the room without occupying any measurable space. I have the impression that I am being examined, not with hostility or affection, but with the exhaustive attention one might give to an unfamiliar specimen, and for a moment I feel almost relieved to be regarded without any of the usual human qualifications.

Outside, the demonstrators are beginning another procession. The jukebox has started again, though it is distorted this time. The melody is not distinguishable. I hear the scrape of their shoes against the pavement, and beneath the distorted melody, somebody is calling something that might be my name. I cannot distinguish one voice from another.

I examine the two lists: one containing everything I have come to hate about myself, the second containing the names of everyone I have hurt. Everything. I could draw a line from nearly every confession to a name. I had considered folding my second list of names and putting it in my pocket, keeping it to myself rather than presenting it to It, though I cannot understand what would become of those names if I succeeded in relinquishing everything written on the first. I had wanted to be remade into somebody who had never done wrong, but I am beginning to wonder whether such a person would retain any knowledge of what there was to make right. Perhaps this is why I struggle to set fire to everything I have been, everything I have seen. Even worse, I cannot address my wrongs and would rather have my cake and eat it too; I so wish that everyone could forgive me without an apology; I cannot admit my wrongdoings. I have come to regard this reluctance as cowardice, and it has gotten to the point where I am no longer certain whether I am frightened of relinquishing my existence or of continuing to occupy it. I must do something, whether that is fixing the now or undergoing palingenesis.

It will be better this time. I need to get better. I need to be determined, brave. Whichever choice I make.

I need to do something.

I present the goblet and both of the papers before It. For a moment, the room shines so brightly that the two lists become indistinguishable from the surface beneath them, and I can no longer distinguish my hands from the surrounding air. I have the extraordinary impression of being returned to a condition preceding my own existence, to the first great, devastating luminosity from which all subsequent distinctions arose, and I wonder whether It is receiving me or preparing to send me back.

I try to inhale. The crowd has stopped shouting. Something is happening to my body, although I cannot determine whether I am becoming more acutely aware of it or losing my connection to it altogether. The light is spectacular, intolerably beautiful, and I find myself thinking of every ordinary morning I have ever squandered wishing I were somebody else.

There is a knock at the door. I cannot see the door anymore, but I hear the knock again, followed by a voice asking whether I am there.

I believe that I recognize the voice.

I want to tell them that I am having second thoughts about forgetting everything. I want to tell them that I am not asking to have it erased, that I am prepared to carry it with me, that perhaps an entire life need not be discarded merely because some portion of it has become unbearable, but I cannot bring myself to speak the words. I want the person on the other side of the door to come inside, although I cannot decide whether I am asking them to bring me back into the world or merely to witness my departure from it.

I am still torn between a fear of rebirth and a fear of continuity.

The light intensifies.

Somebody is calling what I believe is my name again, but I am not sure whether I am capable of making a sound.